Free Meeting Mr. Right by Deb Kastner

that fact burned through her chest. How much easier this would be if Mama was still around to put the finishing touches on Vee herself.
    Still, she reminded herself, she wasn’t completely alone. She had the Lord, and in the long run, He was really the reason she was doing this at all. Hopefully through Christ she would discover the courage to find herself amid all the fluctuation in her life right now and be able to anchor herself in God for the long haul, including stateside mission work.
    Lately, she’d been clinging to the verses in Matthew 5, especially verse 16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
    Wasn’t that exactly what she was trying to do? Let her light shine? Step out from behind the shields she’d used to protect herself from ridicule or rejection and let the world see who she truly was?
    Those verses filled her with renewed hope and peace—and most of all, courage. She knew she couldn’t do this herself—but then, she didn’t have to, did she? She had God in her corner, and what more could a woman ask for?
    She started humming an old Sunday school ditty that had abruptly come to mind. Before she knew it, she was singing the silly children’s song out loud, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music.
    “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”
    Or she was going to try, in any case. She might end up glowing no brighter than the muted headlights on her old, reliable truck, but by golly, she was going to give it her best shot or die of embarrassment trying.
    Her happy, sunshine-filled day lasted until she got about ten minutes out of town, when the engine on her customarily peppy little black truck suddenly sputtered and wheezed like an old man with a cold.
    “Oh, no,” Vee groaned aloud, glancing down to check the dashboard panel. She’d filled the gas tank just before she’d left town, and she had recently checked the fluid levels for the oil and antifreeze.
    What could be wrong?
    Please, God, let it be nothing.
    But it wasn’t nothing. It was everything, apparently. Which just figured. Every light on the panel suddenly blinked red, and then she no longer felt the power of the transmission beneath her feet. Holding the steering wheel tightly, she carefully guided the truck to the side of the road with what insignificant momentum was left in it.
    Great. Just what she needed—to have her truck break down in the middle of nowhere, on a highway that was rarely used even by commercial vehicles. Add to that the fact that this was really her only day to spend an entire afternoon in Amarillo searching for the perfect dress.
    Not her best day.
    With a loud, exasperated sigh, she slid out from behind the wheel and marched forward to open the hood, leaning forward and peering inside to see if she could discern any problems offhand.
    Which, of course, she couldn’t, and she didn’t have any notion of why she’d looked at all.
    Like she knew the first thing about engines. Who was she kidding? All she knew how to do was change the oil and check the fluid levels, and she wasn’t particularly skillful at those two things. She absently rubbed at her forehead, where a throbbing headache was rapidly developing.
    At least she wasn’t being stubborn about it. Calm, cool and sensible. That was Vee. It took her less than thirty seconds to acknowledge the truth. She was officially stranded and it was time to call in for reinforcements.
    She mumbled under her breath as she fished her cell phone out of her back pocket and checked for reception, only to find that there were no bars.
    Not one, single, solitary bar. She growled in frustration. Of course there was no reception on such a tiny stretch of uninhabited road. Why would there be?
    Why was this happening to her, especially now? Couldn’t she catch a break just this once? But then, why should this time be any